Actually, I’m trying a new approach to “community-based” editing of my blog posts :)

Riiiight…

John

Your link to the word Communities is going to an page to edit you post – but I’m not sure what post it is supposed to go to :)

Thanks
Nicole

Thanks for the comments/questions.

I may have been unclear in my phrasing, I’m sorry. I believe that the sooner we start working toward these goals, the better. By saying, “I’m glad that libraries are slowly adopting it”, I really mean to say, “I’m glad that libraries are adopting it, albeit slowly.” I follow that statement by adding, “too slowly.”

By “needs assessment”, I presume you mean what I believe libraries need in order to accomplish these goals and bring these technologies to bear. I’ve written a fair amount on this in the past and a lot of it depends on priorities. For instance, I’ve stated that libraries need to seriously consider hiring coders or seeking out individuals within their organization who want to learn. In addition, we need to pressure our vendors to provide the right tools to empower us–the end user. We also have the opportunity to work with other libraries by sharing code, agreeing on standards and building partnerships. We see some of that via the good folks in code4lib. Ultimately, someone is going to have to make a financial commitment to this vision, though, which is why it’s so important to illustrate the inherent value of social software/social networking in libraries.

Your question is a big one, I’ll think more on it.

First, you said:

“Like I’ve said before, libraries are the perfect incubators for social networking. The sooner we start growing that content, the sooner we start fostering an online community with its own unique personality. These will be networks that, twenty years from now, we’ll be garnering prestige from.” – To me that means, do it now and quick.

Then you said:

“RSS, to be sure, is a transformative technology. I’m glad that libraries are slowly adopting it” – To me, that means do it now and slow.

So, you want libraries to do stuff now and slow with some and now and fast others? Or, does it depend on the technology being adopted? I would think that RSS should be adopted much quicker than online networks (my personal opinion).

I’d also like to know your thoughts on needs assessments with creating and providing these new technolgies to users.

Thanks